Alumni

Alumni News: join the MSIH alumni association!

Alumni who wish to join the MSIH Alumni Association can visit http://www.Alum.ni/signup/MSIH, where you will find many of your former classmates already signed up. More than 50% of all graduates are now connected, and Its easy to do! If you have a Facebook account, you can transfer all of your information in a snap.

We also invite alumni to share recent announcements, academic publications, or medical opportunities. We publish information on our graduates in the MSIH e-news update and on our website. Contact the MSIH office at bgcu-md@columbia.edu, fill out an update (see link at left), or call 212-305-9587.

Want to make a contribution to support alumni activities? Click here to make a donation to suppor the alum.ni website and alumni student mentorship programs, or call 1-800-962-2248 (96-AABGU) and ask for Donor Affairs.

2.12.14 MSIH alumna Anatte Karmon, MD ('07) gave a lunchtime lecture and Q&A session to medical students at the MSIH on Tuesday, February 11. She completed her OB/GYN residency at Albert Einstein is now doing a fellowship in Reproductive Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

4.11.13 MSIH graduate Anya Kleinman, MD (’11) met with first-, second- and third-year medical students at the MSIH on February 21, to discuss residency applications and present techniques for developing differential diagnoses using real clinical cases. Dr. Kleinman is a second-year resident in the department of Pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, and assists third-year medical students with pediatric case write-ups.

The MSIH Alumni Association, whose charter was recently ratified by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, is actively involved in mentoring fourth-year medical students who seek career guidance and residency application advice. A similar mentoring program, for second- and third-year medical students at the MSIH, is currently in development for the 2013-14 academic year.

Shannon Langston, MD (‘07) has been selected by the MSIH Alumni Association to be the first alumni association speaker at the 2012 Physician’s Oath ceremony in September. Dr. Langston is an Assistant Professor in the department of emergency medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

He recently completed a two-year fellowship in International Emergency Medicine at Vanderbilt University following a residency in Emergency Medicine at Wayne State University’s Detroit Medical Center/Sinai Grace program. He worked in Haiti following the earthquake in 2010 and has spent significant time in Guyana, South America assisting with the creation of the first residency in emergency medicine there and the first masters-level residency program for the country. He will meet with current students as well as colleagues while visiting the MSIH. This is the first of many engagements that the newly-formed MSIH Alumni Association hopes to organize to provide mentoring and support for current students.

Ryan Davis, MD (‘10), MPH (seen at left) was featured in the article “Serving individuals while developing lab skills” in the March/April 2012 issue of Global Health Matters, the e-newsletter highlighting the latest global health research and activities of individuals at the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Davis, who works with the Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute, is currently a Fulbright-Fogarty fellow in Botswana and is working on a technique to detect acute HIV infection (AHI) using dried blood samples as part of a prevention study.

Ariel Daube, MD (‘10) visited with medical students at the MSIH last week, and delivered the talk “Pediatric Tropical Diseases Visual Diagnosis”. He is a PGY-2 resident in the Department of Pediatrics at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. After the talk, he met with students interested in pursuing a residency in pediatrics for an informal Q&A session.

Rachel Colman, MD (‘09), visited the MSIH the first week in April. She is a PGY-3 resident in the Department of Neurology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Coleman spoke to first-, second- and third-year medical students on residency in the United States, neurology residency, and her experiences during her global health clinical clerkship to Nepal in 2009. She also held an interactive session where she presented a clinical case, and had the students practice presenting the case back to her, as case presentation styles in the United States are slightly different that those in Israel. After completing her residency this June, Dr. Coleman will begin a Headache fellowship.

Javeed Sukhera, MD (‘07) was an invited attendee at the TEDMED 2012, held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. last week. More than 1500 people gathered to explore ideas, innovations and challenges that will help to shape the future of health and medicine in the next century. (http://www.tedmed.com/home). Dr. Sukhera’s attendance was sponsored by the American Association of Medical Colleges; he is completing a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Rochester this July and will then return to Canada as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.

Daniel Urbine, MD (‘04), will complete a three-year fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Henry Ford Hospital, in Detroit, Michigan in May. He will then return to Zambia for his fourth medical mission, where he will work primarily in rural villages to treat malaria and other infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. He is leading a medical team from Detroit’s Oak Pointe Church, which has sponsored international medical missions for the past thirteen years. “You can save a child’s life for $3.00 - the cost of malaria medication,” he recently reported.

In the photo at left, taken during his last visit to Zambia, Dr. Urbine noted the large crowds that wait to be treated, often under makeshift tents to protect patients from the sun.

For more information on his trip to Zambia, visit the Oak Pointe website at www.oakpointe.org. To make a donation, visit the website, create a secure login, and select “Missions-Adult Zambia” to donate. Use Dr. Urbine’s ID#428.

Shanaan Meyerstein, MD (‘10) has been selected as the 2012-13 American Academy of Pediatrics’ Medical Students, Residents, and Fellowship Trainees (SOMSRFT) liaison to the Section on International Child Health (SOICH). Dr. Meyerstein is currently a resident in the Department of Pediatrics at North Shore - Long Island Jewish Hospital in Manhasset, New York.

Jubran Dakwar, MD (‘05) has completed two, two-week international surgical missions this past year. In October of 2011 he visited Hebron, in the West Bank with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), to assist with pediatric urological surgeries. In December, 2011, he returned to the West Bank, this time in Jenin with PCRF, (at far right in photo) to perform reconstructive plastic surgery on thirty-seven burned and deformed children. Dr. Dakwar completed a fellowship in Critical Care Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and will join the Critical Care team at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, California in April.

American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene's annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 7, 2011. Dr. Edwards is a Pediatric Infectious Disease Fellow at Rainbow Babiesand Children's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio..

Brian Neese, MD ('05) MPH is seen above with MSIH-BGU Director A. Mark Clarfield, MD. Dr. Neese is the Chair of the MSIH Alumni Committee and acted as host for the day-long event. He discussed The US Air Force’s Cross-Cultural and Global Health Activities, and how his position as an International Health Specialist enables him to be at the forefront of policy and stability operations, the goal of which is to improve the flow of aid and assets to underserved countries in Latin America during a disaster or war. Other presentations included the following:

Ryan Carroll, MD (’02), MPH (seen at right with Head of the Admissions Committee Lynne Quittell, MD) is a Pediatric Critical Care Intensivist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and spends one-third of his time working in Uganda on the Blantyre Malaria Project. With nearly ten years of research on pediatric cerebral malaria, Dr. Carroll and his colleagues have developed a method using nitric oxide to reverse the symptoms of this type of malaria, with few adverse effects. Translational Research in Cerebral Malaria describes the research and clinical data compiled in order to develop the treatment plan forcerebral malaria using nitric oxide. The final step in this process will be to create systems for the local community to implement independent of outside assistance. Click here to view Dr. Carroll's powerpoint presentation.

Erica Spatz, MD (’03) MHS (seen at left) is a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Yale University School of Medicine, and she has been working to expand the safety net for the uninsured in New Haven, Connecticut. Working with Medically Underserved Communities in New Haven, Connecticut: Dealing with Health Disparities in Economically Advanced Urban Settings is a fascinating study that focuses on the difficulties underserved populations face in not only receiving care but continuing care, and how to improve timely and coordinated care through a patient navigation model called Project Access. Project Access, a donated system of care from hospitals and specialists, and designed for underserved individuals, eliminates some of the administrative and bureaucratic problems that reduce a patient’s participation in their own healthcare needs.

Melissa Dawalt Klein, MD (’05) MPH (at right) is now an internist at the Cleveland Clinic, but recently completed work with Unity Health Care Program, which delivers healthcare to federal correctional facilities in Washington, D.C. Applying Lessons Learned in Correctional Medicine and Re-entry from the Unity Health Care Program, Washington, D.C. exposes the tremendous difficulty that the prison population and newly-released prisoners face in receiving timely and adequate healthcare. Federal statistics estimate that the United States prison population suffers from substance abuseproblems, severe mental illness and homelessness at much higher rates than the general population, (upwards of 50% of all inmates suffer from mental health problems such as depression, mania, and psychotic disorders) and tend to receive sub-par care or no care at all. Click here to view Dr. Klein's presentation, Correctional Medicine.

The final presentation was by Henry Welch, MD (’05), who has just returned from a two-year Global Health fellowship in Botswana. This fellowship, a collaboration between the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the government of Botswana/South Africa, focuses on pediatric education and research.

Pamela Cooper, MA, MSIH Administrative Director, who has been conducting a ten year project to track the global health activities of MSIH, presented an overview of alumni engagement in global health at the 2011 Alumni Symposium. The project effort was recently highlighted in a poster presentation at the combined conference of the Global Health Education Consortium (GHEC) and the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) conference in Montreal. The data derived from interviews and on-going alumni surveys indicates that 70.5% of graduates from the MSIH’s first five classes have been involved in one or more areas of global health within two to eight years after graduation. The MSIH alumni tracking project also shows that 62% of graduates from the first eight cohorts (2002-2009 graduates) are involved in one or more areas of global health and that many graduates are involved in four or more areas of global health-related clinical activity or research. The school concludes that in multiple respects, its alumni are meeting, if not surpassing, the medical school’s benchmark for advancing its mission and global health priorities. Click here to view the presentation.

Cody Conklin, MD (Class of 2005) - Cody was featured in Winter 2011 issue of the American Academy of Pediatrics AZ Chapter Newsletter in the article "Practicing in a clinic on wheels." Dr. Conklin is a pediatrician and hospitalist at the Phoenix Children's Hospital's Crews'n Healthmobile in Maricopa County, Arizona. Click here to read the article.

Lashawn Worsley McIver, MD, MPH (Class of 2004) - has just been named Managing Director after recently being appointed Associate Director, Public Policy and Strategic Alliances for the American Diabetes Association. She will head the public policy efforts at the federal and state level and will also serve as the senior staff person for the Tri-Council (African American Diabetes Action Council, Asian Pacific American Diabetes Action Council, and the Latino Diabetes Action Council). She was also the first recipient of the prestigious Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Health Policy Fellowship to study HIV/AIDS in African-Americans. This two-year fellowship enabled Dr. McIver to provide important data used to develop health policy and strategy for the members of the Congressional Black Caucus. For more information, see the March 2010 press release in the News section of this website.

Maria Cornelius, MD (Class of 2007) - Maria has been appointed clinical assistant professor at the Family Medicine Residency Program at the University of Wyoming College of Health Sciences. She completed her residency at the Family Medicine Residency Program in Casper, Wyoming. Visit the UW website for more information.

Javeed Sukhera, MD (Class of 2007) has been appointed to the 2010-2011 Board of Directors of the American Association of Medical Colleges. You can read the full press release here.

Daniel Leffler, MD, MS (Class of 2002) – is quoted in the Science Times sections of Tuesday's New York Times, regarding his newly published study on Endoscopic procedures and the rate of hospitalizations due to complications. You can read the article in its entirety by clicking here or visiting http://www.nytimes.com and searching under Endoscopy.

He is pursuing a combined fellowship in nutrition and gastroenterology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. A co-founder of the Harvard Celiac Center, opened in the Fall of 2004, Daniel has also authored and co-authored several articles for medical journals, including the Journal of Managed Care, the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, the Journal of Human Lactation, and the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition. Dr. Leffler is currently an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.

Craig D. Blinderman, MD, MA (Class of 2002) – Craig (seen at left with MSIH co-director Richard Deckelbaum) has just been named Chief of the Adult Palliative Medicine Division, Department of Anesthesiology at Columbia University Medical Center. MSIH Director Richard Deckelbaum, M.D. ( at right with Craig) welcomed him back to CUMC from Massachusetts General Hospital, where Craig was co-director of the Cancer Pain Clinic and an instructor at Harvard Medical School. After graduation Craig completed research on pain and palliative care for HIV/AIDS patients in Swaziland, South Africa, and returned to MSIH as a guest lecturer at the Physician's Oath Ceremony in September 2005. He shared his insights on his research with the class of 2009 and discussed the changing role of physicians. Craig served as a Fellow in Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York before his appointment at Mass General.

Sigalit Hoffman, MD (Class of 2006) – Dr. Sigalit Hoffman, has just begun a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. For several weeks prior to commencing her fellowship, she participated in a relief mission in Haiti, where she treated patients in the Sacre Coeur Tent Hospital in Milot, which is 150 miles northwest of Port au Prince. You can read a full account of her visit here.

Eric Barna, MD, MPH (Class of 2004) -completed his master's in public health at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, and was named Chief resident at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Jacobi Medical Center. He is currently at Mount Sinai Medical Center in the Internal Medicine division, and was recently invited to join the Davidoff Society for Excellence in Teaching Residents and Medical Students.

Henry Redel, MD (Class of 2007) - will be starting his fellowship in Infectious Disease at New York University in July, 2010. During his Internal Medicine residency at Montefiore Medical Center in New York he spent a month in Kisoro, Uganda where he worked in the district hospital on the inpatient ward and ran the outpatient continuity clinic, which is part of a program set up by Doctors for Global Health, and staffed by residents from Montefiore Medical Center.

Gary Asher, MD, MPH (Class of 2003)- has just been hired at the University of North Carolina department of Family Medicine as an Assistant Professor. He was recently granted a K award for his research on curcumin for colorectal cancer chemoprevention.

Brian Neese, MD, MPH (Class of 2005) - is currently a Family Physician in the United States Air Force. Dr. Neese willhost a roundtable discussion on global health medical education at the Global Health Education Symposium at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in May, 2010. Dr. Neese has published a book " Living and Dying in the Fourth Year"describing his experiences during medical school. For more information, see the March 2010 press release in the News section of this website or click on the link here.

Kelly Mann, MD (Class of 2004) – is a pediatric infectious disease fellow at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, NY. Dr. Mann recently returned from a relief mission to Haiti after the earthquake in January, 2010, where she worked with a team of physicians from Mount Sinai, the Italian Red Cross, and the United States Navy Airborne division. Mann is pursuing her MPH in the Global Health track at Mount Sinai, and is working on a clinical research project with UNICEF in Lima, Peru.

Joseph Sakran, MD, MPH (Class of 2005) - received his MPH from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2004 and is currently Chief Resident of General Surgery at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. Sakran was part of a team of trauma surgeons from Inova who arrived in Haiti less than a week after the earthquake, through the assistance of the Community Coalition for Haiti. Dr. Sakran will begin a Fellowship in Trauma Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania in July, 2010.

Patrick O'Connor, MD, MPH (Class of 2003) – served as Clinic Manager for the International Rescue Committee in Darfur, Sudan before starting a residency in Family Practice at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. He is now a regional advisor for Polio and VPD surveillance with the World Health Organization in their Southeast Asia Regional Office in New Delhi, India.

Navdeep Mathur, MD, MPH (Class of 2003) – worked in Jamaica during July 2005, serving the homeless and mentally ill in Port Antonio. In addition, Navdeep performed clinic and emergency room work in other parts of the country during his stay. He is currently working as an Internal Medicine physician at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington,D.C.

B. Harrison Levine, MD, MPH (Class of 2002) – received his M.P.H. from The University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health in the spring of 2003 and now serves as the Associate Editor of the Patient Management Exercise Section for Focus, the lifelong learning in psychiatry journal of the American Psychiatry Association. Harrison has authored and co-authored several articles for the publication. In June 2005, Harrison received an award for patient advocacy from the University of Michigan Department of Psychiatry. He is currently performing research on the antipsychotic prescription practices at U.S. Veteran's Administration hospitals in patients with presumed delirium.

Lucy Bucci, MD, MPH. (Class of 2002) and Elizabeth Brown (Pooler), MD, MPH (Class of 2002) – during their residencies at the University of Rochester, Lucy and Elizabeth traveled to Haiti in winter 2005 and both worked two months in a family medicine clinic. Dr. Bucci is now Clinical Assistant Professor and Hilo Site Director at the Hawaii Island Family Center. Dr. Brown received her MPH from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in 2006 and is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester and in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, NY.

Howard Levitt, MD (Class of 2002) – was selected as chief resident in internal medicine at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City in 2005 and went on to pursue a fellowship in Cardiology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Dr. Levitt is a Cardiologist in private practice in New York.

Manisha Patel, MD (Class of 2002) – completed a fellowship with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) after helping develop protocols for Pediatric emergency room staff in the event of biological warfare. She served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the CDC's Epidemiologic and Surveillance Division of the National Immunization Program. She is pursuing a pediatric fellowship at Children's Hospital of Montefiore, at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY.